Univ. of North Carolina officials are "seeking permission" to build a $10M TV production center that they would "use to create sports programming for the ACC Network," according to Ray Gronberg of the Durham HERALD-SUN. The product would "add three control rooms and two studios to the Koury Natatorium, supplanting an office suite at the front of the building." Corley Redfoot Zack Inc., will "design the center and hope to put it on line" by May '19. That timing "would coincide, roughly, with the launch" of the ACC Net. UNC officials "expect increased TV-rights payments and revenue sharing from the conference to eventually cover the project’s construction cost." However, the school "needs an OK from the N.C. General Assembly because it figures on borrowing money for the production center up front and repaying it in the coming years as cash from the TV deal supplements" the nearly $27M the university was getting each year from the ACC as of FY '14-15. UNC Assistant AD/New Media Ken Cleary said that the school wants to "end up with a center that’s capable of hosting a couple of live game broadcasts and a studio show all at once, with multi-camera production values across the board." Cleary: "We’ve got 28 sports here and we’ll try to produce live broadcasts of 14 or 15 of them." Gronberg notes an existing TV control room in the Dean E. Smith Center "handles the production of about 150 sports events a year, for internet video and other outlets, but two-thirds of those get limited coverage from a single camera." The new center "should be capable of up to handling up to 180 events a year ... and take feeds from several cameras covering each" (Durham HERALD-SUN, 6/15).
